Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
thumb|350px Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (often shortened to simply Eat Lead) is a single player-only, third-person shooter game developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by D3 Publisher for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was released in North America on February 26, 2009, in Europe on March 6, 2009, and finally in Australia on March 26, 2009. A sequel, entitled Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond was released in 2010. Eat Lead is fairly unique, in that it pits players in the role of the title character, a "legendary" gaming hero who is "returning to glory" in a new video game, some 25 years after his debut game and 6 years after his last game. In reality, the Matt Hazard character is in his first video game, with a history made up by D3 Publisher to chronicle the character's rise and fall in popularity. The Return of Matt Hazard marks Hazard's fictitious "comeback" to the gaming scene. Hazard is voiced by Will Arnett, while Neil Patrick Harris voices his nemesis, Wallace "Wally" Wellesley. The game itself is a parody of action-gaming clichés. The October 2008 debut trailer was done as a Behind the Music spoof called Inside the Game complete with Jim Forbes narration. It chronicles Matt Hazard's successes and hardships, and mirrors the progression of the Duke Nukem series of games, from early 8-bit to modern consoles. Gameplay Eat Lead is a third-person shooter where the player takes the role of satirical video game character Matt Hazard, implementing an over-the-shoulder camera perspective with combat emphasizing a duck-and-cover system using walls and other objects in the game’s environment, in a similar fashion to Gears of War. Much of the scenery provides only temporary cover as after a certain amount of damage, it will glitch and be "edited out" of the game, leaving a tear in the level. While in cover, Matt can target and automatically run towards another piece of cover instead of moving manually. Matt can only carry two weapons at once from a continually changing selection, due to the repeated manipulation of the game's environment and level switching. As the game progresses, weapon upgrades are made available that can be applied for temporary effects such as bullets that can freeze enemies. These upgrades can be used again after a meter is filled by defeating a number of enemies. If close enough to an enemy, a string of close combat strikes can be performed. Some boss encounters will switch gameplay to an interactive cinematic where Matt must dodge and counter boss attacks through a quick time event system requiring certain buttons to be pressed or tapped when promoted on screen. Parodies within Eat Lead The game includes many parodies in its dialogue, settings, and characters. This process of parodying action games and other genres is greatly assisted by the fact that Matt Hazard is capable of breaking the fourth wall. The parodies include references to long elevator waits as a mask for game loading, text scrolling RPGs, tutorials, various action games, Mario Bros., Duke Nukem, Dungeons & Dragons, Bugs Bunny, evil twins, Halo's Master Chief, Wolfenstein 3D, Red Steel, Mortal Kombat, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Resident Evil, and more. Reception While the game received mixed reviews overall, the cast of Eat Lead received a nomination in the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards, under the category for "Best Cast," and won the award for "Best Comedy Game." Category:2000's Games Category:Games by Vicious Cycle Category:Games By D3 Category:Shooters Category:Third Person Shooters Category:Action Games